Turkey 's ruling Justice and Development
Party's (AKP) renewed mandate puts the electoral seal of approval on its shift
towards the Middle East, even as its importance to Europe increases. Now Turkey itself
is being courted by both NATO countries and, increasingly, the Arab world.

Turkey was for centuries the crossroads of
East and West, but reduced to a shadow of itself in the twentieth century. A
century of European and US inspired intrigue dismembered the Ottoman Caliphate,
inserted a Western-inspired Jewish state into the heart of the Arab world, and
cut Turkish political and social life off from its Arab roots. The end of the
Cold War should have brought the Turkish and Arab peoples back to their "natural"
relations, and Turkey to its
geopolitical importance, but the West prevented this, supporting the Cold War
dictatorial status quo in the region dominated by a combative Israel.

The revolutions in the Arab world have now vaulted Turkey into a
key role in the region. But this is merely Turkey returning it to its natural
roots. "The wave of revolutions in the Arab world was spontaneous. But it also
had to happen to restore the natural flow of history," said Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at the Leaders of Change Summit in Istanbul in March.

Throughout the Arab spring, Turkey has shown that it
is more in tune with regional needs than Europe
and the US. The overthrow of Tunisia's
Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali and Egypt's
Mubarak, close US allies, was greeted with alarm in Washington but with joy in Ankara. Elsewhere,
the "Arab spring" has been more complex, and Turkey's response confirms its new
assertiveness, independent of its NATO allies.

In all the Arab countries now experiencing unrest and
change, the West is concerned first of all with maintaining its interests in
the region -- financial, economic and political. Having "lost"
Mubarak, US President Barack Obama and the G8 "generously" offered to exchange
the new Egypt's
debilitating debt -- incurred under
Mubarak -- for greater Western control
of Egyptian industry, surely a devil's pact. The US has put great pressure on
the Egyptian army to maintain the peace accord with Israel, despite a majority
of Egyptians wanting it cancelled immediately.

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The West's goal in both Libya
and Syria
has been to get rid of the anti-empire pests and open the countries to Western
influence, even at the risk of destabilising those countries. While the West
did not call for the Tunisian and Egyptian dictators to flee the palace, it has
loudly demanded that Gaddafi and Al-Assad resign, aggressively bombing the
former and demanding sanctions against the latter. However, just as Western
enthusiasm for Mubarak and Ben Ali helped seal their fates, active Western
backing for the opposition in Syria
and Libya
has actually given rise to dissent within the opposition and helped to buttress
support for the existing regimes. While repressive, they at least left their
subjects with a sense of resisting imperial encroachment.

Without any imperial baggage, Turkey's response to
the new Egypt and Tunisia
has been advice and assistance with no strings attached. Given the complexity
of the uprisings in Libya
and Syria,
its response to the conflicts there has been more measured, calling for
negotiations, reforms and de-escalation of violence, to allow the countries to maintain
their territorial integrity and rebuild without outside interference.

Turkey 's membership in NATO places it in a
key position to influence the West's continued plans for the region. As it
increasingly asserts its independence under the AKP, beginning with the refusal
to condone the US invasion of Iraq and continuing with the refusal to condone
Israel's colonisation of Palestine, as a NATO member in good standing its voice
of reason is not being heard from the sidelines, but from the very corridors of
imperial power. This gives the more assertive Turkey a new prominence in Western
strategic thinking, and puts great responsibility on the shoulders of the
Turkish leadership. With the AKP's popular mandate renewed, the world can expect
a continuation of a reasoned and independent foreign policy from the AKP -- one
with clout.

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There are complex and dangerous trials awaiting
Turkey. The illegal war waged against Libya is bogged down;
Turkish-Russian-African Union demands for negotiations will continue and
hopefully bear fruit. The ongoing unrest in Syria is a worry which requires
firmness, intelligence and patience.

Israeli intransigence and recklessness are great
challenges to Turkey, with the second Freedom Flotilla to break the siege of Gaza departing from Turkey soon. Israel is desperately
lobbying Western powers and Turkey
to stop the flotilla, clearly worried that if the Israeli Defense Force repeats
last year's massacre on the high seas, it will merely hasten the demise of the
country it purports to defend, as the world turns resolutely against it.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has
expressed fears about Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood "undermining the peace treaty"
which 85 per cent of Israelis approve of. But he need not fear war. While
Egyptians have no love for Israel, none contemplate yet another war against
what is clearly a more powerful and ruthless neighbor.

What Lieberman needs to fear is Turkey's calm, principled stance, buttressing
the new Egypt
as it learns how to walk again. Davutoglu says the US's "one-sided" approach to
the Middle East is not the path to solving the problems and easing the tensions,
and that "Israel needs to be treated like any other ordinary country in the
region." These are welcomed words to Egyptians and allow the new Egypt to join
Turkey in pressuring the Western interloper in their midst into joining the
Middle East as an equal partner not as the region's hegemon.

Turkey 's own democracy is a heated affair,
as protests by and imprisonment of journalists in connection with the so-called
Ergenekon military plot to overthrow the government continue. Whatever the
outcome of this stand-off between the government and its civil society critics,
the demonstrations and the openness of the Turkish press cannot be denied.

When the history of this period is written, imperial
schemes in the region will require a chapter to be devoted to Turkey, just as
chapters will be devoted to the Arab countries. To achieve a meaningful peace
in the Middle East, there must be an end to foreign manipulation. Relations
between countries must be based not on pressure, intrigues and invasion, but on
dignity and respect. That was Erdogan's subtext during his victory speech when
he said, "The Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans have won, just as Turkey has won."

Eric writes for Al-Ahram Weekly and PressTV. He specializes in Russian and Eurasian affairs. His "Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games" and "From Postmodernism to Postsecularism: Re-emerging Islamic Civilization" are available at (more...)